SNOW HILL — Anyone who gets a thrill out of jumping out of airplanes ought to be able to conquer cancer in its worst stage.

At least that’s what Shaun Briley may have thought when he discovered he had a tenacious fight ahead of him with cancer. After seven months of chemotherapy, one of the first things he did was do what gives him an exhilarating thrill.

Briley, 29, is a Pitt County native who moved to the Shine area of Greene County in 1990.

He joined the U.S. Navy in June 2002 and worked in special operations as a parachute rigger. He deployed with the Navy Seal Team to Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I jumped rib boats and supplies,” he said, “then I assembled them and I would drive them off.”

He left the military in December 2011 and, nearly a year later, started working at Maury Correctional Center in November. A month later, he began developing a series of symptoms and was placed on steroids.

It began with a lot of coughing and a lack of energy. There was much congestion, especially when he would lie flat on his back.

“I had pain in my chest and abdomen,” Briley said. “I felt like I had a baseball between my shoulder blades. That was my lymphatic node that was swollen up.”

The symptoms progressed into January.

“When I’d wake up in the morning,” he said, “it was everything I could do to get from the bed to the chair. And then I’d go to sleep.”

On Jan. 16, he threw up blood while at work and got himself to a hospital where he underwent some tests. The next day, his doctor called to tell him he was in stage 4, the highest level, of Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Briley was told to come back to the hospital that day, and he began his first round of chemotherapy. He stayed in the hospital for three days and continued on chemotherapy every two weeks until Aug. 24.

“I lost 31 pounds in the first month,” he said of the treatment period.

Briley said he lost his state insurance when he had to leave work during that time, and he applied for Medicaid. There was no income coming in for four months until Medicaid kicked in.

“I was denied disability twice,” he said.

Since being diagnosed, he had three surgeries — first a tracheotomy, then a port inserted in his shoulder and, on Monday, the port was removed.

Last month, Briley waited for his test results.

“I got the news on September 5th that I was completely in remission,” he said, “and Sept. 13th, I went down to Georgia and jumped out of an airplane with my old military buddy.”

Briley said he’s not 100 percent better, but he can’t sit still. He’s playing tennis and doing yard work and, on Tuesday, he will be returning to work at the prison.

He keeps in mind what someone told him when he joined the military — “If you go into something thinking you could be beaten, you will be.”

“I just kept my same attitude going,” Briley said. “Never be beat. Never be stopped.”

He said he never once thought he would die from the cancer.

“I knew from the day (the doctor) told me,” Briley said, “I was going to beat it.”

Margaret Fisher can be reached at 252-559-1082 or Margaret.Fisher@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @MargaretFishr.